She's an old hippie who seems ready to think about new ideas. How do I nudge her? What's the online media pipeline? I can't talk to her irl much bc she's immunocompromised and can't leave her house.
:halal:
They have a big catalog, so it's real easy to find an episode on a topic she's really interested in.
Definitely Citations Needed. You can bill it as "like an NPR program but without the Democratic Party apologia" or something pretty easily since it's so well-researched and well-presented
Hell yeah I did the same thing with my dad. He's just too set in his ways I'm afraid, and is just very knowledgable about neoliberal economics from a PMC perspective. But he does take my arguments seriously and I like to think I've moved the needle. Chomsky books radicalized me too, whatever you think of his politics his deep knowledge about American empire is just crazy. I've moved past him ideologically in many ways to the point where I feel comfortable critiquing him, but damn I'll be so fucking devastated when he passes.
The other thing Chomsky is still useful for is being a recognizable, lib-friendly, public intellectual. He's a smart guy worth considering who isn't perceived as some overly-radical crank.
I am gonna go against the grain of people saying “watch this YouTuber.” At least as a primary tactic.
My advice is tell her you’re a socialist and why. Tell her about class struggle, and that you’re skeptical of the Democratic Party and outlets like TYT, tell her why you see them as well meaning but misguided and often counter intuitive to the goals of the working class. Don’t lecture her, ease into it. Join an organization or book club and invite her. Act like a comrade and bring her into the fold. And be patient, convincing a liberal to become a socialist doesn’t happen in a day usually.
Hell yeah, lefty comrades were the first breaking point for me. Like "damn I can't believe this cool smart nice person is a communist, I wonder how that happened" and I'd just start asking and listening.
Realizing this recently has also stopped me from constantly being such a lefty preacher in my social life, because nobody wants to hang out with someone like that. Just be upfront about your beliefs and insecurities when people are actually curious. That said I think recommending people on youtube who make good arguments can be a good idea, as long as it's not being forced down their throats.
Well according to a bunch of people I’ve been commenting back and forth with, apparently Jimmy Dore :agony-turbo:
I still don't trust that smug faced screaming boomer. One of my friends ended up self-radicalizing into a goddamn neo-fash, and Dore's content bashing libs about 5 years ago was where his slip started. He points out reasonable frustrations to lib politicians, but his presentation is apparently easy to take the wrong message from. Maybe he's ostensibly batting for vaguely left issues today, but I think it's more like a broken clock thing or opportunism then a character worthy of stanning.
Jimmy Dore unironically pushed me towards a different pipeline. It was like "wow finally someone who recognizes the dems are shit, but not punching from the right." I quickly realized he's pretty dumb, and moved on to like Kyle Kulinski, Majority Report, then the Michael Brooks Show. Never got too far left tho, kinda stuck with DemSocs and SuccDems.
Oh 100%, but people are stanning him everywhere over this dumb lib force the vote argument.
Find the issue she cares the most about -- healthcare? the environment? police violence? -- and point to specific solution already-elected progressives are pushing. This cuts through the doubt of "well you could never get in power saying that" and the apathy of "no one seems to be offering a real solution."
Next, make that issue her red line. It's not enough to love candidates with the right position on that issue and kind of be OK with candidates who oppose it; candidates who oppose it are bad, because this is a big deal that has major impacts on people's lives.
Then, if you haven't already, get her going on media analysis in the style of Citations Needed. It'll all click real fast as she'll see the bias against her new red-line idea.
Finally, point out how the capitalist media that's propagandized her red-line issue has propagandized American foreign policy. Point out how socialist states -- Cuba is usually the best place to start -- do her red-line issue better than the U.S. (note that Cuba is still not great on incarceration even though they and every other country on the planet imprisons fewer people per capita than the U.S.). Get into the "what should we actually think of socialist states?" conversation, which is liberalism's final boss for many.
That was my first thought but he's very young ppl and gamer oriented. Not sure if it would click with her.
Yeah Hasan is very internet. There actually is a lack of real leftists that cover news in a serious way that can bait in news junkies.
Amy Goodman & Democracy Now did a lot for me during the Bolivian coup. I was swallowing every NYT story that came out, but Democracy Now was the first to point out the complete and obvious discrepancy in the OAS reasoning. Felt so vindicating 6 months later to see NYT come out with "hmm maybe OAS had some issues"
I really wouldn't rely on Hasan, I don't think it's intellectually helpful to dunk on dumb Trump supporters, which seems to be most of his content.
Democracy Now definitely has a great anti-imperialist bent, but regurgitates Washington politics at other times. Jumped pretty hard on the RussiaGate bandwagon.
Also - most of the time they're boooooring. Someone who watches TYT wants some spice and personality.
Trueee the boredom is part of the reason I got off Democracy Now lol.
Kyle Kulinski. He was the evolution from TYT for me. He's somewhat a TYT spin-off (part of the TYT Network, ran with the same crowd, founded Justice Democrats together with Cenk, etc.), does a mix of political and culture commentary videos, but is only a touch more radical - that is, is willing to criticize Democrats a lot more readily and is more focused on politics in general.
Plus, Kyle just launched the podcast "Krystal Kyle and Friends" with Krystal Ball. It should have a more gender-neutral energy than Kyle by himself.
Jimmy Dore's too rough around the edges. Bad Faith might be too youth-oriented, but is closer to the mark.
Maybe the Greyzone, kinda of a bit dry sometimes but does seem to make references to "stuff that happened yesterday when it happens again today" to keep things from slipping down the memory hole.
I haven't watched any of their videos but Consortium News has both online articles and has started doing some Youtube videos. Lots of anti imperialism, anti Russia gate, world news stuff there.
This is prob bad for libs at first. They're gonna read "Venezuela is ok actually" and kick into lib mode.
I mean, she's already gotten burned by TYT.
Its kinda the path that I followed. TYT, then when Dore split off I found myself watching clips from his show more than TYT, Dore has folks from the Greyzone on somewhat regularly and found myself watching some of their stuff.
I can't remember how I came across Consortium News though ... not sure if it was when looking for Russiagate? or Manning/Assange/Snowden stuff?
If you want someone in the approximate style of a late night show, some more news is pretty good. That was a big thing for me. But really, I think you just need to talk to her.
